Amanda Gorman, mano a mano with Michelle Obama: to shine in Joe Biden’s jurors to recite in the Super Bowl

February is the Month of Black History in the United States and to honor the review Time published a file dedicated to art afroamericano, coordinated by Ibram X. Kendi, the writer writes book How to be an anti-race fue best seller. The beam of the asuncion of the president Joe Biden, la poet Amanda Gorman, thanks to the release of the edition, interviewed by the ex first lady Michelle Obama.

The National League of American Football (NFL) eligió a Gorman para que lea un cougar original antes del Super Bowl LV, this Sunday 7 February will be between you Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The first joven poeta laureada (2017) of the United States has electrified the public with the performance in the queue “The hill we climb” (The hill below), January 20 in Washington DC. See the most commented on the social networks, including the high profile figures that the listener in Biden’s positioning chair, like the former president Barack Obama.

‘In a day for the history books, Amanda Gorman recites a poem that is more than the height of the moment. The girls as she tried to ‘always have light, if only we have strong values ​​for light, if only we have strong forces for light’“, Quoted the mandate 44. También su esposa Michelle la celebró:” Con sus falabras fuertes y conmovedoras, Amanda Gorman nos recuerda el can any one of us have to defend our democracy. Brilliant sight, Amanda! I do not know the time when I want to continue ”.

The former first lady commenced to interview Gorman for the double number of Time dedicated to African American culture. Ya la había tratado en dos ocasiones antes —en 2016, en un evento en la White House parte del Programa Nacional de Estudiantes Poetas, y in 2018 and an act of the organization Black Girls Rock— pero había quedado very impressed by the recipe.

—Como el resto del país, I was deeply moved to learn your poem “The Hill We Climb” in the asuncion, the most passed. The potency of your words is glorious, but there is something more to it: your presence in the stage, the confidence that exudabas as a young african american which would help to have one more hopeful chapter of the national leadership. Debo decir que también me sentí orgullosa; always has a lot of development and grace, but in the green he has no way of entering the country and can not avoid thinking: “Well, it has not done much”. My dio mucha felicidad. How to prepare for a moment?

—Everything we find connects to the secret of hope that you have given me, so you can get rid of it. But being the extraordinary person you are, you will always agree — commenced by Gorman—. When writing the poem for the first time, think that in the first week before the sanction iba will try all the days. Pero pasaron cosas tan velozmente que in reality no logré sentarme with the text has the previous night. The mayor is part of my preparation consisted in measure the emotion of the poem, prepare my body and my mind for this moment. Hubo has a lot of representation in front of the house the night before.

Obama the signal that the public will see “as a result of prodigy: una poeta que hizo arder al país ”. Ella, probe ban, no se siente así, dijo. Many people imagine the people as having a “astronomical life change” as long as they are instantaneous. Pero no: es un work “from a wide entrance, and also a collective work”.

Gorman wrote: “Algo que nee le hy contado a nadie that during his last years, every time he writes a poem that he wants to publish or recite, he says: ‘Write the poem for the sentence‘. And what it means to me is not necessary to write a poem about a president. Period: ‘Write a poem that is at the height of a new chapter in the country. To all who write, write what they say sufficiently valiant as to be a hopeful. In all that you write, write something that you will write ‘. I do not believe that hubiera can write the poem of the assumption if he hubiera lives every day of my life as if he were going to lie or lie ”.

The former first lady signaled that poema, en sí mismo, “puso el dedo en la llaga, in particular a lie of chaos and violence that we live in the days before the sanction ”, recorded the asalto al Capitolio. “Aunt of the Division, listen to it in unity was a balm species ”. And the question that signifies the idea of ​​unity for her.

Gorman stated that he had no idea what he was doing, and that he did not do so. unity without a sense of justice, equality and equity is simply a toxic turban mentality. The unity that drives us to the future implies that we accept our differences: that we agree and that we are inclined to this diversity. It is not clear to us that our demos are questioning what we are doing. It is unity with a proposal ”.

—¿Cuál fue tu experience of the asuncion but what about? Can you pay attention to presentations and discourses or should you concentrate solely on what you want to do?

—Víví en dos esferas mentales. By a lad, “Sjoe, el Joe Biden’s talk was fantastic. Lady Gaga is cruel”. But at the same time the 66% of my ceremonies are concentrated on questions: “¿Cómo voy a ascend to the podium without a trope? Tengo las manos frías. Can you read the pages if you dedicate yourself to them? ”.

In some of the interviews given on January 20, Gorman thinks he has a mantra. And Michelle Obama asked her about it: “Can you go here, and say the easiest way to choose their words?”.

The surgeon inspiration of the letter of the “Canción de los ancestros”, que Lin-Manuel Miranda —Cuya obra Hamilton Deslumbró a Gorman— composo para la movie Moana. “The song says: ‘Soy la hija del jefe de la aldea. We’re going to travel that will cover the world ‘. Algo así. Disculpa, Lin. Really want something like powder to repeat because I will see it before I get it. As my mantra is: ‘Soy the black scribes who descend on combatants who will break their cadences and change the world. Ellos my llaman ‘. Lo digo para recordarme a mí misma que mis ancestros estan a mi alrededor cada vez que recita ”.

—Het hablado mucho sobre tus trastornos del habla, like sharing with the president Biden and with the legendary poet Maya Angelou, which influences me – both when you were young — the Obama plant—. What does this mean for you?

—El Presidente Biden has noticed that there is a tartamudeo. Maya Angelou fue muda during various years. I can not pronounce any sound, like the error, asi decía cosas como poet [en lugar de poetry] o dola [en lugar de dollar]. I call it Gorman, I can not really pronounce it until three years ago. During this time it is perceived as a disability. Now I’ve really seen it as a force, because get this process converted by a clerk, by a drawer, because you have to find a form of communication that does not work by the book, and by another, when you have enough courage to take their words from the page to the screen, you agree with it understanding of the complexity of the sound, the pronunciation and the enphasis.

As the theme of the edition of Time was the African American art, and especially the great display of creativity that it has seen in the last years, the ex prima dama the question to the poet of Los Angeles if she uses the term “renaissance” for the period and if it is as part of it.

‘We live a moment of importance in the african american art because we live a moment of importance in the african american life“, Observe Gorman. “I think so what matters in political terms is to have a African American president before [Donald] Trump does not mean that Black lives [Matter] has been converted into the mayor’s social movement of the United States ”. To make the most of this phenomenon is that the phrase “absorb and live” in this atmosphere of African-American creation, from artists to those it admires, explained. ‘Y también my toca hacer arte and participate in this historical register ”.

– “The Hill We Climb” mentions that descendant of slaves. What paper does poetry compel to help make our history known?

—Quise que los estadounidenses accedieran a algo de mí. Much of the province’s inspiration discourse that you disagree with the National Democratic Convention when it says: “Every man despises me in a house that was built by slaves”. Poetry is the spring that we use to interrogate history about what we support and the future we represent. There is no coincidence that at the base of the Statute of Liberty there is a poem. Our instinct is to recreate the poetry when we seek to communicate a spirit that we are great. When writing, I was at the forefront of the history of the palabras. The specific history of the phrases in the poem of the fugitive: “We saw the manners in which it was violated in the language and it was used to dehumanize. How can you reindicate the idiom so that we can leave as a source of hope, purification and consent? ”.

Michelle Obama’s quizzes saber if the young poet is considered a optimist. ‘Sonde dudas. The optimism does not have to be understood as the opposition to the pessimism as a dialogue with it. Di optimism will never be as powerful as it is at the exact moment when you want to break the braces. The way in which all of us can hope not to lose the feelings of death or doubt, we ask ourselves: “What has our job been this time? ¿Y what can saccharos of the sombras? “, Cerró Gorman.

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A Memphis graduate student graduated with honors and more than 40 universities